Daily Short #196, June 27th, 2018: Dexa Body Composition Testing and Football Resourcefulness
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I don't understand how this short Instagram story -- and its subject -- isn't talked about more. One thing is certain: the media department for Texas Football is doing the best job of any media department in the country regarding marketing the program's intricacies and benefits.
In the clip above, from the Texas Football account, you'll see the lengths the University of Texas is now going to from a science-based perspective to create the most efficient and successful athlete possible across sports on a player-by-player basis.
UT's Center for Applied Sports Science's "Dexa Body Composition Testing" looks like it is straight out of the year 2045 in a movie about what things will be like in the future. The fact that the football program has a head dietician who can analyze the data this technology captures to identify how much muscle mass can reasonably be added to the bone structure of each athlete is astounding. Not only how much, but also how soon.
On top of being an uber-useful tool in a marriage of player development, nutrition and strength/conditioning, it surely serves as an excellent add-on to any recruiting pitch. Regardless of how fans may view the current facilities at Texas (yes, the Bubble is an eyesore and lesser-than schools like Texas Tech have even recently upped their game in the indoor-practice-facility department to trump UT) very few schools in the country can offer such robust excellence and integration in the medical sphere. Texas' partnership with St. David's and its affiliation and proximity to the new Dell Medical School will only deepen this level of integration as time moves on, technology becomes richer, and a (finally) progressive athletic director in Chris Del Conte continues to invest in the lives of the athletes.
Under former head coach Charlie Strong and AD Steve Patterson, Strong's proclamations often flew in the face of this type of progress. While his tearing out of Mack Brown's smoothie machines in the weight room symbolized his intent to remove a "country club"-atmosphere from the air here in Austin, his staunch desire to counter-balance Kevin Sumlin in-state and not be a "gadget program", in turn, basically left a vast array of resources available to him largely untapped. Strong said he was fine with dilapidated facilities like the bubble, that social media was the downfall of society, that no bus rides were needed for players on a pain-in-the-ass uphill walk of at least four city blocks (in cleats) up to the practice fields at Denius. Looking back, it seems like a cockamamie recipe for twisted ankles or even pedestrian hazards during rush hour. He passed on computer-graphic flat panel wall imagery in the walkways of Moncrief for $79 FatHeads of ex-Horns that looked more suited for a hole-in-the-wall sports bar or the room of a grimy-fingered 13-year-old boy than in a world-class Division 1 football facility.
It wasn't ever reported in earnest, but Texas under Strong did eventually make a significant investment in Catapult's player-tracking GPS technology following my series of articles on how the Horns were falling behind in this department, but the equipment was ultimately used by other sports within the department as football never even installed the software or had any analyst trained to pull the data and provide reports to coaches and trainers.
Something tells me that Tom Herman will not allow this sort of competitive advantage fall through the cracks in such a cavalier fashion. In the end, we know it's just the game of football. You have to be tough, you have to be physical, you have to out-execute the opponent and you have to out-gameplan the opponent. You can't buy your way into any technologies or new-age woo woo or secret sauce to get that done. Strong was right ... at least in that sense. However, the path to greatness in any realm necessarily runs directly through resourcefulness.
The short piece linked above illustrates a much larger point about that: the Texas Football program, in 2018, is getting every ounce of utility it can from the resources available to it on the applied sports science-side while also squeezing every bit of production out of its online media team to make sure this perk of the program is broadcast in ways meant to reach recruits and fans.
The production needs to start showing up in the win-department, plain and simple.
But when and if it does, Texas Football may finally once again begin to resemble the optimized machine it has the potential to be, given its rich history and embarrassment of resources.
presented by the Dental Offices of Wendy Swantkowski, DDS
The Absolute BEST in family and cosmetic dentistry for the Houston-Memorial Area
Now Accepting New Patients --- 281-293-9140
Support the Short by supporting our sponsor - Give Wendy a call today!
I don't understand how this short Instagram story -- and its subject -- isn't talked about more. One thing is certain: the media department for Texas Football is doing the best job of any media department in the country regarding marketing the program's intricacies and benefits.
In the clip above, from the Texas Football account, you'll see the lengths the University of Texas is now going to from a science-based perspective to create the most efficient and successful athlete possible across sports on a player-by-player basis.
UT's Center for Applied Sports Science's "Dexa Body Composition Testing" looks like it is straight out of the year 2045 in a movie about what things will be like in the future. The fact that the football program has a head dietician who can analyze the data this technology captures to identify how much muscle mass can reasonably be added to the bone structure of each athlete is astounding. Not only how much, but also how soon.
On top of being an uber-useful tool in a marriage of player development, nutrition and strength/conditioning, it surely serves as an excellent add-on to any recruiting pitch. Regardless of how fans may view the current facilities at Texas (yes, the Bubble is an eyesore and lesser-than schools like Texas Tech have even recently upped their game in the indoor-practice-facility department to trump UT) very few schools in the country can offer such robust excellence and integration in the medical sphere. Texas' partnership with St. David's and its affiliation and proximity to the new Dell Medical School will only deepen this level of integration as time moves on, technology becomes richer, and a (finally) progressive athletic director in Chris Del Conte continues to invest in the lives of the athletes.
Under former head coach Charlie Strong and AD Steve Patterson, Strong's proclamations often flew in the face of this type of progress. While his tearing out of Mack Brown's smoothie machines in the weight room symbolized his intent to remove a "country club"-atmosphere from the air here in Austin, his staunch desire to counter-balance Kevin Sumlin in-state and not be a "gadget program", in turn, basically left a vast array of resources available to him largely untapped. Strong said he was fine with dilapidated facilities like the bubble, that social media was the downfall of society, that no bus rides were needed for players on a pain-in-the-ass uphill walk of at least four city blocks (in cleats) up to the practice fields at Denius. Looking back, it seems like a cockamamie recipe for twisted ankles or even pedestrian hazards during rush hour. He passed on computer-graphic flat panel wall imagery in the walkways of Moncrief for $79 FatHeads of ex-Horns that looked more suited for a hole-in-the-wall sports bar or the room of a grimy-fingered 13-year-old boy than in a world-class Division 1 football facility.
It wasn't ever reported in earnest, but Texas under Strong did eventually make a significant investment in Catapult's player-tracking GPS technology following my series of articles on how the Horns were falling behind in this department, but the equipment was ultimately used by other sports within the department as football never even installed the software or had any analyst trained to pull the data and provide reports to coaches and trainers.
Something tells me that Tom Herman will not allow this sort of competitive advantage fall through the cracks in such a cavalier fashion. In the end, we know it's just the game of football. You have to be tough, you have to be physical, you have to out-execute the opponent and you have to out-gameplan the opponent. You can't buy your way into any technologies or new-age woo woo or secret sauce to get that done. Strong was right ... at least in that sense. However, the path to greatness in any realm necessarily runs directly through resourcefulness.
The short piece linked above illustrates a much larger point about that: the Texas Football program, in 2018, is getting every ounce of utility it can from the resources available to it on the applied sports science-side while also squeezing every bit of production out of its online media team to make sure this perk of the program is broadcast in ways meant to reach recruits and fans.
The production needs to start showing up in the win-department, plain and simple.
But when and if it does, Texas Football may finally once again begin to resemble the optimized machine it has the potential to be, given its rich history and embarrassment of resources.
